Did being laid off, frustrations with the limitations of traditional newsrooms, or uncovering an underreported issue motivate you to launch your own newsletter, podcast or website?
No matter what your catalyst was, how ambitious your vision is or how great of a journalist you are, your project won’t have an impact if no one engages with it.
“High-quality content is crucial to sustaining a readership,” said Fernanda Braune Brackenrich, U.S. editor of audience engagement at the Financial Times. “But it doesn’t matter how good your content is if no one can find it.”
At larger newsrooms, audience engagement teams collaborate with reporters and editors before a story goes live — strategizing how, when and where to publish it, then refining it based on performance. Independent project founders, however, often handle everything themselves.
“I've heard that a news startup endeavor should split its time [into] a third marketing, a third editorial and a third business development,” said Cadence Bambenek, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the climate solutions newsletter, Hothouse.
Since launching in 2020, Hothouse has gained 5,500 subscribers. For the past two years, Bambenek has run it mostly on her own. “When personal life events impacted me, they impacted Hothouse, too.” After an earthquake destabilized her housing situation, keeping the newsletter running mattered more than pushing for growth.
For reader-funded projects, expanding and sustaining reach is also essential to financial viability. “Revenue is always the biggest challenge,” said Jamie Wareham, founder of QueerAF, a nonprofit LGBTQIA+ publisher primarily supported by paying members.
“An editor told me to stop pitching — and I’m quoting — ‘gay stories’ because there was no ‘money’ or ‘audience’ in them,” said Wareham. To test that claim, he launched QueerAF in 2016 as a podcast, later expanding it into an award-winning, newsletter-first publication that invests in emerging LGBTQIA+ talent.
Cultivating a following isn't just about visibility — it makes your journalism sustainable and influential. So, how do you build and keep one?
Below, Bambenek, Braune Brackenrich and Wareham offer practical advice on how to do so.
Find your niche and commit to it
One of the biggest mistakes independent journalists make is shifting the focus too often. “Pick a niche and stick to it. Work out your goal and stick with it,” suggested Wareham. It's tempting to jump between ideas or pivot too soon when something isn’t working. While refining is important, give your project time to grow.
Before launching publicly, test your content and format, and once you’re live, commit to the long game. “It takes a really long time to grow anything anywhere, especially media products,” said Wareham.
Understand your audience
Before publishing, put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Ask yourself:
- When and where do they get news?
- What format fits their lifestyle?
“If you’re launching something for an audience [that] lives in big cities, for example, you should account for commute time,” said Braune Brackenrich. “That’s a good time for people to check their phones and read, listen or watch something.”
Let these insights guide when and how you publish, and remember that first-rate journalism is essential for building a readership.
“I did a deep dive on our audience recently, and Hothouse’s readers are frequently high-level decision-makers,” said Bambenek. “I have no hope in retaining their attention if I don't keep up the quality of the articles and insights that readers have come to expect.”
Understanding who reads Hothouse — what they need and where they work — has helped shape its trajectory.
You can get to know your audience by looking at analytics, surveying them or asking for feedback.
Establish a sustainable schedule
Publishing on a weekly cycle often builds stronger engagement than fortnightly or monthly, but only if it’s realistic for you. “You're gonna have to do it every week. So make sure it's something that you really love,” said Wareham. QueerAF’s newsletter goes out every Saturday morning as a recap of the weekly news. “That means my busiest day is Friday,” he added.
Before committing to a schedule, ask yourself:
- Is this sustainable for me?
- Will it still work months or years from now?
Use social media with purpose
“I would recommend focusing on one social media channel to concentrate your efforts. Present your content in different ways, mixing links, photos and videos,” Braune Brackenrich suggested.
She noted that while social referral traffic has declined, posts from individual accounts — rather than business pages — have been less affected. Amplifying your work under your name can drive more engagement than solely relying on an outlet’s presence.
Invest in relationships
Directly interacting with your audience creates loyalty and strengthens word-of-mouth marketing. “Spending lots of time on [building] relationships — which doesn’t always feel like it has a tangible outcome — makes people more likely to support QueerAF when we make the ask in either a public or a direct way,” said Wareham.
These “non-scalable actions” are critical for long-term growth, Wareham wrote in a recent article. They can steer editorial decisions, too. Readers often highlight stories no one else is covering, creating a cycle in which engagement drives content and content fuels engagement.
Offering valuable resources, such as QueerAF’s Trans+ History Week page, can also attract new subscribers. “That was more of an evolution rather than a clear plan at the start,” Wareham admitted. But the page became a tool for growth.
Join the conversation
Since her audience is more likely to engage with in-depth analysis than quick-hit social media content, Bambenek streamlined Hothouse’s presence by publishing exclusively on Substack, which offers discovery tools to attract new subscribers.
“I think it has saved me a headache to focus on making high-quality articles and publishing them on one platform instead of letting my attention get divided,” she said.
But as the newsletter nears its fifth year, Bambenek is reconsidering how to promote the project. “At a certain point, you do a disservice to the work if you don’t put in the effort to assert it correctly and proudly in the conversation it’s in dialogue with.”
Speaking at events, joining industry discussions and engaging on social media are opportunities to join the conversation and build connections.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.
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